Sustainable development

This conference is being held at the early stages in a cluster of related studies on the political economy of electric power systems in developing countries. The event has been timed to allow the presentation of the first drafts of the overall framework as well as individual case studies-to be critiqued and counseled. The introductory overview provides a framework for thinking about the "political economy" of reform-the legal, political and institutional issues that largely determine the organization of electric power systems and explain the outcomes of different attempts at reform. The study is expected to be finalized by summer 2003.

Bechtel Conference Center

School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
UC San Diego
San Diego, CA

(858) 534-3254
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Professor at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and Director of the School’s new Laboratory on International Law and Regulation
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David G. Victor Associate Professor Moderator Program on Energy and Sustainable Development

Crown Quad rm 329
Stanford, California 94305-8610

(650) 723-7650 (650) 725-0253
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Lewis Talbot and Nadine Hearn Shelton Professor of International Legal Studies, Emeritus
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An expert in international law and legal institutions, Thomas C. Heller has focused his research on the rule of law, international climate control, global energy use, and the interaction of government and nongovernmental organizations in establishing legal structures in the developing world. He has created innovative courses on the role of law in transitional and developing economies, as well as the comparative study of law in developed economies. He co-directs the law school’s Rule of Law Program, as well as the Stanford Program in International Law. Professor Heller has been a visiting professor at the European University Institute, Catholic University of Louvain, and Hong Kong University, and has served as the deputy director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he is now a senior fellow.

Professor Heller is also a senior fellow (by courtesy) at the Woods Institute for the Environment. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1979, he was a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and an attorney-advisor to the governments of Chile and Colombia.

FSI Senior Fellow and Woods Institute Senior Fellow by courtesy
Thomas C. Heller Professor Moderator Stanford Law School

Program on Energy and Sustainable Development
Center for Environmental Science and Policy
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 725-8073 (650) 724-1717
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J.S.D.

Dr. Tjiong joined PESD in September 2002. His work at PESD concentrates in the realm of electric power market reform. Since 1999, Dr. Tjiong has been a Research Associate with the Max-Planck-Projectgroup, Common Goods: Law, Politics, and Economics in Bonn, Germany. Previously, he served as Consultant to the Consumer Policy Committee for the OECD in Paris, France. Dr. Tjiong holds a J.S.D. from Stanford University School of Law and a J.S.M. from the Stanford School of Law Program in International Legal Studies. He also attended Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Postdoctoral Scholar (2002-2003)
Henri Tjiong Fellow Moderator Program on Energy and Sustainable Development
Conferences
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Over the last three decades a wave of reform has spread nearly every aspect of modern economic activity. Reformers have sought to replace state control with markets in air transportation, telecommunications, banking, ports, railroads, food service, and sundry other activities. Even Russian vodka is the product, today, of markets rather than a state behemoth. The experience with reform has underscored that markets to do not arise or function spontaneously. They require institutions, such as law courts, securities markets and regulatory agencies, to deliver on their promise. Yet the political and practical challenges in creating this institutional footing explain, often, why actual practice remains distant from the economist's theoretical optimum for market reform.

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Program on Energy and Sustainable Development Working Paper #1
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Thomas C. Heller
David G. Victor

Today, it is widely recognized that the absence of the rule of law constitutes a critical barrier to economic growth and democractic political development. Increasingly, scholars and policy makers alike are turning their attention toward the concept of economic rights - ranging from broad affirmations of the importance of secure property rights to more particular descriptions of modes of corporate governance - to inform their thinking about growth and development.

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This paper presents the details and results of an energy model of a non-electrified rural village. The model itself was developed with MARKAL/TIMES, a modeling and optimization tool. Much of the data used in the model is based on data obtained from surveys and electricity loggers, while some is based on the authors' own assumptions (e.g. the number of households in the village).

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Program on Energy and Sustainable Development Working Paper #11
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This paper looks into the overall energy pattern in rural China and the possible reasons behind based on an assessment of available data sources. Commercial energy consumption by rural residents is disproportionately lower than that by their urban counterparts. Moreover, biological matters are the dominant source of household fuels in rural areas. Variations in energy consumption are closely related to differences in income, access to energy sources, structures of local economy and geographic/climatic conditions. Information on non-commercial energy consumption is incomplete and additional sample survey is required to gather details of rural energy consumption for specification and verification.

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Program on Energy and Sustainable Development Working Paper #12
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About 2.4 billion people rely on traditional biomass, mainly for cooking and heating (IEA, 2002). Essentially all of those users of traditional fuels reside in developing countries, and most of them live in rural areas; low incomes and the lack of access to alternative, modern fuels explain their choice of traditional energy supply. By the late 1990s, IEA (1998) estimated that biomass accounted for approximately 14 percent of final energy consumption, roughly on par with electricity (14 percent). It is likely that the fraction of total energy supplied by biomass will decline in the future as traditional energy carriers are supplanted by the modern movers such as electricity. This paper provides an overview of that "energy transition" from traditional to commercial fuels from the perspective of available macro-economic data. Based on the long time series data available for the United States it suggests some basic patterns in the energy transition, and it examines the transition under way in several major developing countries. It offers a simple regression model of the transition and suggests topics for further research, including an improved regression model.

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Program on Energy and Sustainable Development Working Paper #10
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David G. Victor
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Energy development, interpreted broadly to mean increased provision and use of energy services, is an integral part of enhanced economic development. Advanced industrialized societies use more energy per unit of economic output and far more energy per capita than poorer societies, especially those still in a preindustrial state. Energy use per unit of output does seem to decline over time in the more advanced stages of industrialization, reflecting the adoption of increasingly more efficient technologies for energy production and utilization as well as changes in the composition of economic activity (see, e.g., Nakicenovic 1996). And energy intensity in today's developing countries probably peaks sooner and at a lower level along the development path than was the case during the industrialization of the developed world. But even with trends toward greater energy efficiency and other dampening factors, total energy use and energy use per capita continue to grow in the advanced industrialized countries, and even more rapid growth can be expected in the developing countries as their incomes advance. The fact that expanded provision and use of energy services is strongly associated with economic development leaves open how important energy is as a causal factor in economic development. Development involves a number of other steps besides those associated with energy, notably including the evolution of education and labor markets, financial institutions to support capital investment, modernization of agriculture, and provision of infrastructure for water, sanitation, and communications. This is not just an academic question; energy development competes with other development opportunities in the allocation of scarce capital and in the allocation of scarce opportunities for policy and institutional reform.

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Program on Energy and Sustainable Development Working Paper #9
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